The invention concerns codes which act as keys to unlock resources stored in computer systems, thereby allowing users to gain access to the resources.
As digital storage technology advances, and its use becomes more widespread, an ever-growing base of information is becoming available to an increasing population of information consumers. However, maintaining and providing this information cannot be done free of charge, and, in many cases, the costs involved are imposed, at least in part, upon the information consumers.
For example, if a newspaper is made available through a computer on-line service, the costs of producing the newspaper must somehow be defrayed. One approach to defraying the cost is to assess a fee against consumers who access the newspaper. This assessment procedure inherently involves a restriction in access: access is allowed exclusively to those who pay the access fee.
In addition, and irrespective of cost considerations, access to certain types of information must be restricted for other reasons. For example, some information is confidential to its owner, and the owner will restrict access only to the owner""s designees.
Methods of restricting access to information contained within databases and repositories and other systems are known. The present invention proposes security measures which, in certain situations, are believed to offer superior performance, in terms of offering high security at low cost, with maximal convenience offered to users, particularly where users execute automated searches of large repositories of information.
One object of the invention is to provide enhanced security in information stored in mass databases and repositories.
In one form of the invention, a user of a computer storage repository is assigned a key code, by a system administrator. Each resource within the repository, such as a computer program or block of data, is also assigned a key code. The key codes contain fields which describe characteristics of the respective resources and users. When the user seeks access to th e re source, a process inquires whether the user""s key code matches the resource""s key code. If the key codes match, the user is granted access to the resource.